Keeping up with Lizzie eBook

“I began to explore the mind of Lizzie, an’
she acted as my guide in the matter. For her
troubles the girl was about equally indebted to her
parents an’ the Smythe school. Now the
Smythe school had been founded by the Reverend Hopkins
Smythe, an Englishman who for years had been pastor
of the First Congregational Church—­a soothin’
man an’ a favorite of the rich New-Yorkers.
People who hadn’t slept for weeks found repose
in the First Congregational Church an’ Sanitarium
of Pointview. They slept an’ snored while
the Reverend Hopkins wept an’ roared. His
rhetoric was better than bromide or sulphonal.
In grateful recollection of their slumbers, they
set him up in business.

“Now I’m agoin’ to talk as mean
as I feel. Sometimes I get tired o’ bein’
a gentleman an’ knock off for a season o’
rest an’ refreshment. Here goes!
The school has some good girls in it, but most of
’em are indolent candy-eaters. Their life
is one long, sweet dream broken by nightmares of indigestion.
Their study is mainly a bluff; their books a merry
jest; their teachers a butt of ridicule. They’re
the veriest little pagans. Their religion is,
in fact, a kind of Smythology. Its High Priest
is the Reverend Hopkins. Its Jupiter is self.
Its lesser gods are princes, dukes, earls, counts,
an’ barons. Its angels are actors an’
tenors. Its baptism is flattery. Poverty
an’ work are its twin hells. Matrimony
is its heaven, an’ a slippery place it is.
They revel in the best sellers an’ the worst
smellers. They gossip of intrigue an’
scandal. They get their lessons if they have
time. They cheat in their examinations.
If the teacher objects she is promptly an’
generally insulted. She has to submit or go—­for
the girls stand together. It’s a sort
of school-girls’ union. They’d quit
in a body if their fun were seriously interrupted,
an’ Mr. Smythe couldn’t afford that, you
know. He wouldn’t admit it, but they’ve
got him buffaloed.

“Lizzie no sooner got through than she set out
with her mother to find the prince. She struck
Aleck in Italy.”

Socrates leaned back and laughed.

“Now, if you please, I’ll climb back on
my pedestal,” he said.

“Thank God! Lizzie began to rise above
her education. She went to work in her father’s
store, an’ the whole gang o’ Lizzie-chasers
had to change their gait again. She organized
our prosperous young ladies’ club—­a
model of its kind—­the purpose of which is
the promotion of simple livin’ an’ a taste
for useful work. They have fairs in the churches,
an’ I distribute a hundred dollars in cash prizes—­five
dollars each for the best exhibits o’ pumpkin-pie,
chicken-pie, bread, rolls, coffee, roast turkey, plain
an’ fancy sewin’, an’ so on.
One by one the girls are takin’ hold with us
an’ lettin’ go o’ the grand life.
They’ve begun to take hold o’ the broom
an’ the dish-cloth, an’ the boys seem to
be takin’ hold o’ them with more vigor
an’ determination. The boys are concluding
that it’s cheaper to buy a piano-player than
to marry one, that canned prima-donnas are better
than the home-grown article, that women are more to
be desired than playthings.